Our Story
In 2009 I purchased screen printing classes as a gift for my fiancé. After he showed me how it worked I became obsessed. I combined this new obsession with my longtime love for nature and background in photography. The combination of these blossomed in 2010 when I officially began Sprouted Designs by opening an Etsy shop. The more I printed the more I fell in love with the process of developing designs to print.
Sprouted Designs strives to create functional art that can be used on a daily basis. Our product line consists of our original designs hand screen-printed onto kitchen flour sack towels, napkins, baby/children’s apparel, paper products and our newest product, handmade wooden vases with our designs laser etched onto them.
We craft every design by starting with a real object, an avocado, a homegrown tomato, a bunny rabbit in my yard, or an antique whisk for example. Using the actual item as the beginning for our designs lends them a beautiful and clean quality. In the printing process we use environmentally friendly water based inks that have a wonderfully soft feel on the fabric, perfect for drying dishes or when you are snuggling up with baby. We also take great care to properly heat set the inks onto our products to ensure their long lasting beauty.
It’s a family affair at Sprouted Designs! Amanda creates most of the designs, does all the tedious computer work, and finds time to hand screen print some of our products as well. Andrew handcrafts all of the wooden vases from scratch, screen prints and does design work too. Alice, our 3-year-old daughter, is our model and official business card hander out at festivals.
As a small business we try to be as environmentally conscious as possible. When selecting blanks to print on we only use high quality items and try to keep our sourcing as local and ethical as possible. The flour sack towels I have made for me in Michigan. They are a nice heavier weight and unlike standard flour sack towels they are hemmed on all four sides and I’ve added a hanging loop. My paper products are made from 100% recycled paper from the Michigan based family run hydro powered paper mill, French Paper co. The children’s apparel I source from made in America companies that use organic cotton.
Our newest product line is one of a kind wooden vases. We are laser etching our designs onto unique handmade wood vases. We source our wood from an urban logging company in St. Louis Missouri that rescues wood that would otherwise be headed to the chipper to make mulch. A hole is drilled in each vase to hold a test tube for water and then they are sealed with a homemade mixture of mineral oil and beeswax to highlight the varieties and nature of the wood.
Our products make the perfect hostess gift when you are attending a Holiday party. Wrap a bottle of wine in one of our hand printed towels and you will be the host’s favorite guest! Our vases are also a wonderful unique gift that you won’t find anywhere else, they look lovely with a sprig of evergreen and a flower. We will have several great holiday designs available on our towels, napkins and children’s clothes.